Who Is Helping Taobao Recover 100 Million Users?

October 18, 2025 17:29:00 Who Is Helping Taobao Recover 100 Million Users? (Source: Snow Leopard Finance) By Li Xiao The number of users who have ordered takeout via Taobao Flash Purchase but haven’t made e-commerce purchases has exceeded 100 million—this is data revealed by Chu Duan, President of Alibaba’s China E-commerce Business Group Taobao Platform, at the 2025 Tmall Double 11 press conference. A takeout order not only fills users’ stomachs but also expands Taobao’s traffic pool.

At the group interview after the conference, Chu Duan bluntly stated that the above 100 million users are “people who used to shop on other platforms”, and most are urban users because Taobao Flash Purchase’s takeout business covers over 300 cities nationwide. This means that in the fiercely competitive stock market, Taobao has cut a piece from rivals’ cakes with the sharp tool of Flash Purchase.

After years of stock competition, the competition in the e-commerce industry seems to be shifting from “who is cheaper” to “who is more frequent”. For Taobao, this shift is crucial. It is no longer just an evolution of platform form but a reconstruction of rhythm—how to get users to return to Taobao and come every day. Flash Purchase is the starting point of this reconstruction.

As one of Taobao’s core business moves in 2025, Flash Purchase is not just a large-scale, long-cycle promotion but a new growth logic. Especially against the background of high-frequency traffic being diverted by Douyin, Pinduoduo, and Meituan in recent years, Flash Purchase gives users a reason to open Taobao every day.

When Douyin uses content to stimulate impulse, Pinduoduo uses price to lock in consumption, Taobao chooses to reorganize business with “rhythm”. The launch of Flash Purchase is essentially a systematic attempt by Taobao to reactivate “high-frequency usage scenarios”.

The First Double 11 with Full Participation of Taobao Flash Purchase

At the 17th Double 11, Taotian’s starting gun fired the latest. Tmall officially at 8 PM on October 15, one day later than the 2024 presale start. Taobao skipped the presale period and entered the spot sales stage at 8 PM on October 20 together with Tmall, being the last mainstream e-commerce platform to stand on the Double 11 stage.

Taotian labeled this Double 11 with three “firsts”: the first Double 11 in the era of big consumption, the first Double 11 with full AI implementation, and the first Double 11 with full participation of Taobao Flash Purchase.

In previous Double 11, Alibaba’s instant retail business also participated, but with weak synergy with the main site promotion, mainly focusing on a few categories like catering and supermarkets, separated from the Double 11 main venue, with different discount rules. In terms of discount intensity, coverage breadth, and ecological synergy, it cannot match this year’s Taobao Flash Purchase.

For the e-commerce business, compared to purchasing off-site traffic, investing budget in Taobao Flash Purchase not only keeps profits within the platform but also has a smoother user conversion channel and higher conversion rate—financial reports show that in the first three weeks of August, Taobao Flash Purchase drove a 25% year-on-year growth in Taobao App’s monthly active consumers and a 20% year-on-year growth in daily active users.

At the Double 11 node that attracts national attention, expanding the voice of Taobao Flash Purchase and further strengthening the user mindset of instant retail business is also part of Alibaba’s strategy to connect far-field e-commerce and near-field retail and realize the strategy of high-frequency driving low-frequency. It is an active attack by Taotian, a traditional comprehensive e-commerce platform, to relieve traffic hunger.

On the first day of Double 11, Taobao Flash Purchase’s late-night snack orders in 270 cities nationwide increased by over 200% year-on-year, supermarket convenience orders increased by 670%, and categories like drinks, baking, fruits, and fresh produce all achieved 2x growth. Brands gained new increments by accessing Flash Purchase services: 3C digital, personal care, clothing, and other brands’ transactions on Taobao Flash Purchase on the first day of presale increased by over 290% compared to the same period last year.

Increment Leader

In 2025, through the takeout war, Alibaba began to re-examine its instant retail strategy and regarded the combination of instant retail and Taobao as the best path. Flash Purchase has been seen as Taotian’s future increment leader.

Increments come from two aspects: user growth and scenario expansion. In other words, the value of Flash Purchase lies not only in the increased transaction volume but also in re-injecting high-frequency rigid demand scenarios into Taobao.

Chu Duan divided Taobao’s user assets into four layers: U, C, M, V—User, Consumer, Member, VIP (i.e., UCMV system). In this funnel conversion model, U (user) is the starting point. The significance of Flash Purchase lies in reactivating U and C, i.e., the touch and conversion links. In August this year, the monthly purchasing users of Taobao Flash Purchase exceeded 300 million, driving the growth of Taobao’s overall traffic.

It can be understood that Taobao has expanded a new category—catering takeout. This category has the characteristics of high frequency and rigid demand, so a large number of users have flocked in and converted into Taobao’s consumers.

One month after Taobao Flash Purchase was launched, the rapid growth of orders and user activity gave Taobao confidence: “When a high-frequency scenario runs on the Taobao App, as its quantity continues to increase, consumers’ DAU and annual purchase frequency will definitely be higher and higher. The addition of Flash Purchase will definitely promote the activity of the Taobao platform, the maturity of the membership system, and the expansion of the UCMV system.” Chu Duan said.

The core category of Flash Purchase is catering takeout, an industry with natural high-frequency attributes. Benefiting from Ele.me’s years of accumulation, Taobao was able to quickly enter.

Chu Duan described the takeout business as a large-scale collaborative improvement of social efficiency: “One hundred people cooking by themselves is not as good as one restaurant cooking for one hundred people.” Social efficiency is improved, and the experience is also improved. From the perspective of social collaboration, Flash Purchase is not only a business expansion of Taobao but also an entry point for the platform to re-enter “high-frequency life”.

A typical user story might be: Someone opens Taobao to order takeout but buys clothes and movie tickets, and finally remembers they haven’t ordered takeout yet. This “accident” is exactly the “life penetration” that Taobao expects.

In the past two decades, Taobao has updated Chinese people’s online shopping methods in countless industry waves. But when instant retail, AI, and local life interweave into a new business narrative, Taobao is no longer willing to be just a shelf platform but tries to weave a life network covering “eat, drink, play, enjoy, and buy”.

Against this background, the significance of Flash Purchase to Taobao is not just a business module but a systematic project of rhythm reconstruction + traffic redistribution + user mindset reconstruction.

For Taotian, the era of big consumption has just begun. Standing at the starting point of the long run, Taotian still has many checkpoints to pass.

The biggest challenge is: Flash Purchase has successfully brought User and Consumer, but how to further convert 100 million takeout users into high-frequency repurchase e-commerce users is the key to the decisive game.

Article keywords: Flash Purchase, Taobao, Double 11, Takeout, Tmall